Sir William Gull

[Mike J. G.]

Obviously you have some of your your facts and figures incorrect where Gull is concerned . The important ones .

So William Gull wasn't 70+ years old, wasn't recovering from a stroke, was actually living within the vicinity of the murder sites and had a history of criminality and violence?

See, here's the thing...

If you want to trim the fat from the suspect list, you have to realistically assess the likelihood of a suspect's candidacy.

Without any actual evidence that a particular person commited these murders, we have to look at the list and honestly weigh up the genuine likelihood that these men were not only physically, mentally and emotionally capable of committing murder, but had a good chance of realistically being in the area when the murders took place.

William Gull is neither more or less realistically capable of having commited these murders than Joseph Merrick was.

If you're not bending your imagination in what can only be described as a strenuous session of mental gymnastics, you can most definitely rule William Gull out of the list of LIKELY suspects without hesitation... If you actually wanted to.

We can generally claim that anyone could have been Jack, and it's somewhat true-ish. But in reality we know that not just anyone could have been Jack, and people like Gull can be safely struck from the list of probable suspects considering the fact that there's actual murderers who were in and around Whitechapel who were genuinely physically, mentally and emotionally capable of committing murder.

Argue all you like about facts and figures, mate, it's your life. I'd rather spend mine not entertaining ridiculous speculation about giant hairy men evading humanity in the grassy hills of the well traversed States of America.

Cheers

[Fiver]

He may very well been, we can't say he wasn't with any degree of certainty can we ?

Certain parts of the article might well be interpreted as an interesting motive, Gull being a physician, perhaps he wanted to further medical science and this was his agenda. Who knows ?

Thanks for pointing me to this. It fails as a motive based on Gull's extensive medical knowledge. Even a butcher would know no medical knowledge could be gained by mutilation.

[FISHY1118]

So William Gull wasn't 70+ years old, wasn't recovering from a stroke, was actually living within the vicinity of the murder sites and had a history of criminality and violence?

See, here's the thing...

If you want to trim the fat from the suspect list, you have to realistically assess the likelihood of a suspect's candidacy.

Without any actual evidence that a particular person commited these murders, we have to look at the list and honestly weigh up the genuine likelihood that these men were not only physically, mentally and emotionally capable of committing murder, but had a good chance of realistically being in the area when the murders took place.

William Gull is neither more or less realistically capable of having commited these murders than Joseph Merrick was.

If you're not bending your imagination in what can only be described as a strenuous session of mental gymnastics, you can most definitely rule William Gull out of the list of LIKELY suspects without hesitation... If you actually wanted to.

We can generally claim that anyone could have been Jack, and it's somewhat true-ish. But in reality we know that not just anyone could have been Jack, and people like Gull can be safely struck from the list of probable suspects considering the fact that there's actual murderers who were in and around Whitechapel who were genuinely physically, mentally and emotionally capable of committing murder.

Argue all you like about facts and figures, mate, it's your life. I'd rather spend mine not entertaining ridiculous speculation about giant hairy men evading humanity in the grassy hills of the well traversed States of America.

Cheers

No heres the thing , keep it simple, Gulls age has nothing to do it , 70 years men kill !!! Period.

He health was not that of someone who was incapacitated ,which has extensively been shown and documented . It is a common misconception often used to eliminate him as a suspect.

His location in and around London make it possible for him to have the opportunity to commit the murders ,that fact has yet to be disproved.

Since when does a history of criminality and violence become a must have prerequisite for killing ??

I've discussed a possible motive( notice i said possible motive) as per the article posted by DJA .

So in my opinion Gulls makes a good suspect, as good as any other mentioned on these boards.

Unlikely you say ?

There all Unlikely when one finds out things that don't stack up .

Every suspect falls into that category ,such is the nature of the unsolved crimes .All we really have is opinions and speculation as to each favorite person of choice..

[Mike J. G.]

No heres the thing , keep it simple, Gulls age has nothing to do it , 70 years men kill !!! Period.

He health was not that of someone who was incapacitated ,which has extensively been shown and documented . It is a common misconception often used to eliminate him as a suspect.

His location in and around London make it possible for him to have the opportunity to commit the murders ,that fact has yet to be disproved.

Since when does a history of criminality and violence become a must have prerequisite for killing ??

I've discussed a possible motive( notice i said possible motive) as per the article posted by DJA .

So in my opinion Gulls makes a good suspect, as good as any other mentioned on these boards.

Unlikely you say ?

There all Unlikely when one finds out things that don't stack up .

Every suspect falls into that category ,such is the nature of the unsolved crimes .All we really have is opinions and speculation as to each favorite person of choice..

No, I definitely get it. I just don't understand why you're trying to push an unlikely suspect as being credible. Are you writing a book on Gull?

I've made it painfully simple. It really couldn't be any more simple even if it wore a pointed hat, admired the Kardashians and had stabilizers on its bicycle.

You're confusing "possible" and "probable" again.

He'd had a stroke, or two strokes, I can't remember, but it's irrelevant. He was not in good health. His ability to be up and about, stalking in the late to early hours, locating, soliciting, incapacitating, murdering and mutilating a live victim is questionable at best.

From what I gather, he was living away, recuperating, so his abilities to travel to and from his place of rest to the Whitechapel area and back are questionable at best.

The motive you gave was vague and, honestly, pretty silly.

Can you name a few 70+ year old men who suddenly decided to take up serial killing?

Of course a previous history of criminality and violence is relevant, especially when discussing the idea that a previously stable and law abiding doctor could suddenly decide, in his 70s, after a stroke, to begin killing women.

I'm not entirely sure how you can claim that Gull is a probable suspect while also claiming that none of the suspects are likely, especially when the suspect list genuinely contains actual murderers.

It's a laughable argument, really.

You can't prove that rock goblins don't exist, because you've not looked under every rock, have you?

I don't understand how anyone could hope to progress in this case when we're sitting here waffling on about this absolute horse manure.

Fair play to you, mate, you're nothing if not persistent, like a nagging feeling of dread after a long night on the ale.

[JeffHamm]

No heres the thing , keep it simple, Gulls age has nothing to do it , 70 years men kill !!! Period.

He health was not that of someone who was incapacitated ,which has extensively been shown and documented . It is a common misconception often used to eliminate him as a suspect.

His location in and around London make it possible for him to have the opportunity to commit the murders ,that fact has yet to be disproved.

Since when does a history of criminality and violence become a must have prerequisite for killing ??

I've discussed a possible motive( notice i said possible motive) as per the article posted by DJA .

So in my opinion Gulls makes a good suspect, as good as any other mentioned on these boards.

Unlikely you say ?

There all Unlikely when one finds out things that don't stack up .

Every suspect falls into that category ,such is the nature of the unsolved crimes .All we really have is opinions and speculation as to each favorite person of choice..

But Fishy, what you're arguing above is that:

1) anyone of any age can be considered and is as good as anyone else (Mary Bell was convicted of 2 murders at the age of 11)
2) anyone not physically incapacited is worth considering and is as good as anyone else
3) anyone who can be said to be associated with London can be considered, even if they have been shown to be out of town at the time as long as it is not physically impossible for them to travel to London and these make them as good as anyone else
4) anyone, with or without a criminal history, is as good as anyone else
5) anyone for whom we can think up a possible motive for (even if we have nothing to indicate they thought that way) is as good as anyone else

In short, Fishy, Gull can only be considered a "good suspect" if you allow for pretty much anybody at all who gets picked at random from the population of people who lived in, around, or sometimes visited, London in the 1880s. And if anyone at random is as "good as Gull", I would suggest the word "good" becomes meaningless.

I mean really, woman sometimes kill people, so by your criterions Long is as good a suspect as Gull (motive: moral indignation against prostitution). How about Mrs. Fiddymont, or Mrs. Mortimer? All we have to do is make up a potential motive, and they meet all the same criterion as Gull.

But once we start putting some limiting constraints on things, like age, physical fitness, etc, Gull very quickly falls off the list. That to me is a pretty good indication that he cannot be described as being a "good as anyone else" suspect, because he requires the most liberal of criterions in order to be considered. Once any constraints are placed, he gets removed from the "worth looking at beyond those found by random search". Those who remain on the "constrained list" would, in my opinion, qualify as better suspect than Gull.

There is nothing that connects Gull to the case in any way other than he was mentioned in the Royal Conspiracy theory, which has been conclusively disproven. That eliminates his connection to the case entirely.

I'm not saying you have to stop favoring him, that's your choice, but your arguments for saying he's as good as anyone else literally requires that anyone else can be chosen and they would be as good as Gull.

- Jeff

[Lewis C]

hi lewis
agree re hutch. but he has three main reasons to be suspicious. the two you mentioned and thirdly conveniently waiting until just after the inquest is over to come forward. and related to your second.. he was basically engaged in stalking like behavior and has no alibi at around her probable tod. indeed he said he was wandering about all night. did he return when he found out she was alone, or maybe never left at all from his little vigil, but went to her door when marys companion left? its all very suspicious to me.

and ill just add one more little nugget.. what are the only pieces of direct evidence in the whole case that implicate a jew? the gsg and hutches dubious description of a jewish suspect.

Hi Abby,

Good points in the first paragraph, and fr the reason you added, I'll also note that he came forward only after someone testified that she had seen someone standing in Miller's Court at that time, which leaves the impression that he may have come forward pre-emptively, before they came looking for him.

In the 2nd paragraph, I would say Anderson saying that a witness identified a Jewish man as being the Ripper qualifies as evidence, though it can be debated how strong it is as evidence.

[FISHY1118]

No, I definitely get it. I just don't understand why you're trying to push an unlikely suspect as being credible. Are you writing a book on Gull?

I've made it painfully simple. It really couldn't be any more simple even if it wore a pointed hat, admired the Kardashians and had stabilizers on its bicycle.

You're confusing "possible" and "probable" again.

He'd had a stroke, or two strokes, I can't remember, but it's irrelevant. He was not in good health. His ability to be up and about, stalking in the late to early hours, locating, soliciting, incapacitating, murdering and mutilating a live victim is questionable at best.

From what I gather, he was living away, recuperating, so his abilities to travel to and from his place of rest to the Whitechapel area and back are questionable at best.

The motive you gave was vague and, honestly, pretty silly.

Can you name a few 70+ year old men who suddenly decided to take up serial killing?

Of course a previous history of criminality and violence is relevant, especially when discussing the idea that a previously stable and law abiding doctor could suddenly decide, in his 70s, after a stroke, to begin killing women.

I'm not entirely sure how you can claim that Gull is a probable suspect while also claiming that none of the suspects are likely, especially when the suspect list genuinely contains actual murderers.

It's a laughable argument, really.

You can't prove that rock goblins don't exist, because you've not looked under every rock, have you?

I don't understand how anyone could hope to progress in this case when we're sitting here waffling on about this absolute horse manure.

Fair play to you, mate, you're nothing if not persistent, like a nagging feeling of dread after a long night on the ale.

Your missing my point regarding Gull and his stroke , ,motive and abilities to carry out such murders. , ill not repeat myself again, suffice to say he remains a viable suspect on the evidence that is known about him . Imo

[FISHY1118]

Thanks for pointing me to this. It fails as a motive based on Gull's extensive medical knowledge. Even a butcher would know no medical knowledge could be gained by mutilation.

Who said anything about mutilation?

Look at the post mortem of Mark Kelly and the way in which her organs were removed. the mutilation was for effect.

[FISHY1118]

But Fishy, what you're arguing above is that:

1) anyone of any age can be considered and is as good as anyone else (Mary Bell was convicted of 2 murders at the age of 11)
2) anyone not physically incapacited is worth considering and is as good as anyone else
3) anyone who can be said to be associated with London can be considered, even if they have been shown to be out of town at the time as long as it is not physically impossible for them to travel to London and these make them as good as anyone else
4) anyone, with or without a criminal history, is as good as anyone else
5) anyone for whom we can think up a possible motive for (even if we have nothing to indicate they thought that way) is as good as anyone else

In short, Fishy, Gull can only be considered a "good suspect" if you allow for pretty much anybody at all who gets picked at random from the population of people who lived in, around, or sometimes visited, London in the 1880s. And if anyone at random is as "good as Gull", I would suggest the word "good" becomes meaningless.

I mean really, woman sometimes kill people, so by your criterions Long is as good a suspect as Gull (motive: moral indignation against prostitution). How about Mrs. Fiddymont, or Mrs. Mortimer? All we have to do is make up a potential motive, and they meet all the same criterion as Gull.

But once we start putting some limiting constraints on things, like age, physical fitness, etc, Gull very quickly falls off the list. That to me is a pretty good indication that he cannot be described as being a "good as anyone else" suspect, because he requires the most liberal of criterions in order to be considered. Once any constraints are placed, he gets removed from the "worth looking at beyond those found by random search". Those who remain on the "constrained list" would, in my opinion, qualify as better suspect than Gull.

There is nothing that connects Gull to the case in any way other than he was mentioned in the Royal Conspiracy theory, which has been conclusively disproven. That eliminates his connection to the case entirely.

I'm not saying you have to stop favoring him, that's your choice, but your arguments for saying he's as good as anyone else literally requires that anyone else can be chosen and they would be as good as Gull.

- Jeff

As good as anyone else jeff , because as in the case of Maybrick and ' Druitt and others when we pick them apart we unravel the word that is " unlikely " just as easy when it is used for Gull.

For example, given everything we know about Druitt and the fact nothing exists that ties him remotely to the murders im not will to say his more likely than Gull to be jtr. I don't see the problem here.imo

[Herlock Sholmes]

When we assess a subject the first thing that we consider is why they have been suggested in the first place as this is the vital ‘in’ for that particular suspect. For example, Maybrick has only been suggested due to the diary but the diary is a proven forgery imo; therefore we have no reason left for suspecting Maybrick apart from the fact that he was a man, he might have been physically capable of committing them, he might have travelled to London and he might have had a motive that’s unknown to us. None of which are remotely sufficient reasons for accusing him.

So when we compare two suspects like Gull and Druitt we can immediately see a disparity. Gull was named in a Royal Conspiracy theory which has been proven false. Therefore if we remove that theory/explanation we are left with a 72 year old recovering stroke victim (which would place him in the furthest reaches of unlikeliness in serial killer terms and possibly even unique in the annals of crime) who had no known mental health issues, who wasn’t known to be violent, who had no issues with women and whose possible motive we can only guess at and who might have been able to travel to London to commit the murders. This just can’t make Gull ‘as good a suspect as anyone else’. Especially when we consider known murderers of a women like Bury and Kelly.

Druitt was mentioned by a politician (although not by name) in 1891 and then he was named in a memorandum as a likely candidate by the Chief Constable of the Met. Yes we can say that Macnaghten might have judged the reasons for suspecting Druitt poorly, yes he might have been misinformed, and yes, people can lie. But that said, unlike for Gull, we cannot disprove the source (Macnaghten) and his senior position in the Met means that he has to be treated as a potential good source of information. Absolutely, if we dismiss the ‘source’ as we dismiss the Gull ‘source’ then we are left with nothing that we know of which connects Druitt to the murders but, at the very least, we can say that he was a very physically fit 31 year old which of itself makes him a likelier ripper than Gull. We just have no reason to suspect Gull but Druitt is different. We can a) assume Macnaghten was lying (for which we have no reason and so is hardly a logical way of looking at it) We can b) we can suggest that Macnaghten was mistaken (which is possible but how do we assess that? How do we know that he was mistaken - Druitt has no alibi) Or c) we can simply say no more than - well it’s possible that Macnaghten’s information was good and that Druitt was the ripper. So it’s difficult to assess him further.


So by dismissing Gull we dismiss a man for whom we have no reason to suspect in the first place. But by dismissing Druitt we dismiss a suspect who just might (however remotely in the opinion of many) have been the ripper. Druitt and Gull are in completely different categories as suspects.

[Lewis C]

Who said anything about mutilation?

Look at the post mortem of Mark Kelly and the way in which her organs were removed. the mutilation was for effect.

If you weren't talking about mutilation, then I can't imagine any explanation for how the murders could have furthered medical science.

[JeffHamm]

...
So by dismissing Gull we dismiss a man for whom we have no reason to suspect in the first place. But by dismissing Druitt we dismiss a suspect who just might (however remotely in the opinion of many) have been the ripper. Druitt and Gull are in completely different categories as suspects.

Hi Herlock,

Indeed, while I agree with Fishy's suggestion that Gull and Maybrick are in the same "as good as anybody as long as you allow for anybody" category, Druitt is not in that category. Druitt's name is associated with the actual case through McNaughton's mentioning of him. That makes him very different.

Regardless of one's evaluation of Druitt as Jack, a person whose name is connected to the case by the police can only be seen as a "better suspect" (in Ripperology's use of the word) than someone who, apart from being alive at the time, has no connection to the case whatsoever (I don't count being part of a fictional story as constituting a connection to a factual case).

Better, of course, is a relative term. It is entirely possible for someone to acknowledge that Druitt is a better Ripperology suspect than Gull, but to also argue that Druitt is not a good candidate for being JtR. That's not a self contradictory set of statements. A dirt sandwich might be a better meal than a bowl of dirt - at least it has bread after all - , but that doesn't mean it's a good meal.

Obviously, for those who feel Druitt is a better candidate than I've used in my example (I've only used an extreme negative evaluation to illustrate my point), it's even easier to understand how one could view things this way.

What I think would be interesting, and would sort of illustrate my point, would be to apply your suspect rating scale to as many different people from the case as possible. I suppose you could add a 0/1 rating for female/male, so females will generally get a slightly lower rating given it is unlikely JtR was female. Then, one would get an idea of what score a person gets even though we have no reason to suspect them. I rather suspect, Gull would end up with a score in the same range as say Dr. Openshaw, or Dr. Llewellyn. Basically, he would show a score typical of anybody, chosen at random, from the medical profession. In fact, he may even have a score on the lower side, given his age and the fact his location outside of London at the time would tend to reduce his score relative to younger doctors and those known to be in London at the time.

With the scale being applied to "non-suspects" as a control group, then we could evaluate "suspects" relative to "non-suspects". The more divergent a "suspect" is from the "non-suspects" the better they are (with regards to that scoring system of course). My belief is that Gull would be indistinguishable from the non-suspects, but of course that's an empirical question.

- Jeff

[FISHY1118]

If you weren't talking about mutilation, then I can't imagine any explanation for how the murders could have furthered medical science.

So nothing at all comes to mind about working on a human body uninhibited to further medical science ?

Not much imagination.

[Fiver]

Who said anything about mutilation?

Look at the post mortem of Mark Kelly and the way in which her organs were removed. the mutilation was for effect.

[Coroner S. F. Langham] Would the parts removed be of any use for professional purposes?
[Dr. Frederick Gordon Brown] - None whatever.

[FISHY1118]

[Coroner S. F. Langham] Would the parts removed be of any use for professional purposes?
[Dr. Frederick Gordon Brown] - None whatever.

Organ harvesting is Trevor Marriott domain, not mine .

I'm merely pointing out the way in which one' might experiment as to the way in which some medical procedures were conducted at the time. As to further enhance the science and knowledge of the human body.